Stories of King Arthur and His Knights: Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur"Malory, Thomas, Sir
General
Stories of King Arthur and His Knights: Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur"
Malory, Thomas, Sir
Arthur, King -- Juvenile literature; Arthurian romances -- Adaptations; Knights and knighthood -- Juvenile literature
Then King Mark took a sword in his hand and came to Sir Tristram, and
called him false traitor, and would have stricken him. But Sir
Tristram ran under his sword, and took it out of his hand. And then
the king cried, "Where are my knights and my men? I charge you slay
this traitor."
But there was not one would move for his words. When Sir Tristram saw
there was not one would be against him, he shook the sword to the king,
and made as though he would strike him. And then King Mark fled, for
he was a coward, and Sir Tristram followed him, and smote upon him five
or six strokes with the flat of his sword on the neck so that he made
him fall upon the nose. Sir Tristram then went his way and armed
himself, and took his horse and his man, and so he rode into the forest.
King Mark called his council unto him and asked advice of his barons
what was best to do with Sir Tristram. Their counsel was to send for
him, that they might be friends, for in a quarrel, if Sir Tristram were
hard bestead, many men would hold with him against the king; and if so
peerless a knight should depart from King Mark's court and go to King
Arthur's he would get himself such friends there that Cornwall would be
in ill repute.
So the barons sent for Sir Tristram under a safe conduct, and he was
welcomed back by King Mark. But his enemies ever plotted against him,
and on a day Sir Andred and some of the barons set upon him secretly,
seized him, and took him, bound hand and foot, unto a chapel which
stood upon the sea rocks. When Sir Tristram saw that Andred meant to
kill him there, he said: "Fair Lords, remember what I have done for the
country Cornwall, and in what jeopardy I have been for the weal of you
all, and see not me die thus to the shame of all knighthood."
But Andred held to his purpose, and when Sir Tristram saw him draw his
sword to kill him, he looked upon both his hands that were fast bound
unto two knights, and suddenly he pulled them both to him and so freed
his hands. Then he leaped unto his cousin Andred and wrested his sword
out of his hands. Then he smote Sir Andred to the earth, and fought
with the others till he had killed ten knights. So Sir Tristram gat
the chapel and kept it by force.
Then the uproar became great, and the people gathered unto Sir Andred,
more than a hundred, whereupon Sir Tristram shut fast the chapel door,
and brake the bars of a window, and so he leaped out and fell upon the
crags by the sea. Here Sir Andred and his fellows might not get to him
at that time, and so they departed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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